Cantata with epic work of "Fakir"

Cantata with epic work of "Fakir"

Soloists and choir rehearse the cantata "Boletín y Elegía de las Mitas", a poetic work by César Dávila Andrade and performed by the Ecuadorian maestro Édgar Palacios, which will be presented today, tomorrow and Friday, at the 20: 00, at the Carlos Cueva Theater Tamariz

What is a cantata? It is a work that is sung. Without voices that proposal does not exist. There are oratories about religious texts that are cantatas, and there are also cantatas with mundane texts. There are cantatas from baroque times, works by Vivaldi, for example; and there are others that lend themselves to any text. Then everything that is sung and accompanied by an orchestra or chamber ensemble is a cantata.

María Eugenia Arias, at the piano, directs the action of the choristers, and very close to them the soloists who add their voices. When the trial begins, interrupting is not healthy or advisable. The maximum concentration is one of the requirements to list the cantata that involves the musicians of the Cuenca Symphony Orchestra (OSC), the Youth Choirs of the "José María Rodríguez" Conservatory and the University of Azuay (UDA) and the Ballet. National of Ecuador. More than 200 artists for a special that is offered, as part of the tributes for the one hundred years of birth of "El Fakir".

Modular

The work is structured in 12 paintings, of which the chorus sings four passages in certain voices, while other parts of this "Bulletin ..." are doubled with the voices of the soloists.

María Eugenia Arias explains that both the soloists and the choir have a leading role in the work, but the soloists specifically play the roles of those mitayos who were mistreated by the Spanish conquerors and by the mestizos -mixing between Spaniards and indigenous people- they count the history of some mitayos who survived the mines and the works.

The cantata has a large vocal demand, both in the tenor and the soprano strings because of the highs it presents; as well as the bass notes of the bass, the contralto, and some of the paintings in the course of the work. These parts are bent with the wind instruments and that forces the choir and soloists to be clear about the work of the vocal technique and the interpretation of the characters.

They are a total of 48 voices, four lyric soloists and the narrator who, in this case is the baritone Álex Rodríguez. They are joined by the orchestra and the National Chamber Ballet of maestro Rubén Guarderas.

The essays took time, yesterday it was done with the OSC, today in the morning it will be the general rehearsal. "The most important thing is going to do the ensemble with the ballet, that has to be taken into account," says Arias.

From the musical side, Michael Meissner, principal director of the OSC, works with the body of musicians in the preparation of this work that is a derivative of Ecuadorian popular music. The proposal was put together as a worldly cantata or oratorio, not religious, but based on the text by Dávila Andrade.

REALISM

"A cruel text", as stated by Michael Meissner, principal conductor of the Cuenca Symphony Orchestra (OSC), but for his very famous realism.

"Boletín y Elegía de las Mitas" is structured like an opera without action of course, where the skill of the dance enters with its choreography, a complete show in which dancers and choristers interpret the events, because the latter play the role of the people who comments; and the soloists who take the main characters.

The poem by César Dávila has many characters, in the cantata it has an introduction, moments in which the voices are silent to be the music, the dance or the narration of the baritone Álex Rodríguez, who announces, speaks, says something.

All the proposal to be presented in the three days is faithful to the structure of the poem by Dávila Andrade. This is a job in which they add up

various arts: literature, music, dance, choral singing, costumes, and all participants contribute to a single action.